Joe Morgan's Reviews
Valkyria Revolution should have been a single-season anime. Instead, we've gotten a game that's frustrating on the surface, boring in practice, and infuriating to reflect on. Save both your time and money.
Bungie's latest entry in the series makes some considerable quality of life improvements for fans while improving their storytelling. Awkward group counts and an unchanged core won't likely win over many converts, however.
Tacoma tells an engaging tale with memorable characters. Exploring the abandoned station and reliving pivotal moments alongside the crew has become an experience I won't soon forget.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice has shown that video games are mature enough as a medium to capably deliver an entertaining experience while respectfully tackling difficult topics. It's beautiful and emotionally engaging, worth every moment spent in the warrior's mind.
Pyre is a brilliant game with a fantastic story and world building, beautiful visuals, an excellent soundtrack, and fun, clever combat and progression. Supergiant Games continues to impress.
Reglia is a fantastic strategy RPG with a gorgeous, vibrant art style and excellent soundtrack. It's clearly a labor of love the team at Pixelated Milk has poured their hearts and souls into.
Though it lacks the polish of some of its contemporaries, The Surge is a fun Dark Souls-like game with a different setting and some enjoyable new gameplay mechanics.
Kamiko is a fun, light game you can easily pick up and enjoy. Despite its brevity and lack of narrative, the time spent cleansing shrines and wandering the world Flyhigh created made for a memorable experience.
Rise & Shine is a gorgeous game that pays homage to a slew of video game touchstones. While it employs some interesting mechanics, it is ultimately a frustrating experience that disrespects your time in an effort to artificially lengthen an otherwise brief game with a ho-hum story. Let this one sleep in.
With this new rendition of Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap, it's easy to see why so many old-school fans loved this franchise. The world design and inventory systems are well designed and the remastered visuals and audio will have you salivating. It's a blast to discover and utilize the special skill of each animal form. The whole family will have a wonderful time with this classic. (The ability to swap visuals and audio to retro at the click of a button is pretty slick too.)
Hollow Knight is a fantastic adventure platformer with a massive world and a captivating aesthetic. With such an enticing price point, this game is a must-own for fans of the genre.
Sniper Elite 4 is a blast when you're in its sweet spot, tagging enemies and dispatching them from a distance. Unfortunately, it's dragged down by otherwise bad gunplay, a mediocre story, and poor voice acting. If you just want to shoot Nazis from a distance, you'll have a good time though.
Has Been Heroes is a fun yet flawed rogue-like. The steady flow of unlockable content and frantic strategy are engaging, but the brutal boss encounters that often rely on luck from pickups can be infuriating.
Nioh is a fantastic Dark Souls-styled game that gives players a more accessible way to approach the genre while handily establishing itself as a potent newcomer to watch in the future. Japanese myth, culture, and history are also fun, interesting, wonderfully executed boons to the budding franchise.
Marvel Pinball: Epic Collection Vol 1 is a fantastic pinball collection at a reasonable price. Every table is a blast from the themed content to all the little flourishes craftily designed into each table. The game looks and sounds excellent, is family-friendly, and you can play split-screen or hotseat with a friend! Fans of pinball or Marvel properties should definitely consider picking this one up.
Batman fans who want to try out their new VR headsets are definitely going to want to pick this one up. Unfortunately, the game lacks a lot of the hands-on mechanics fans have come to love and the game feels criminally short, especially for the price. That said, experiencing Gotham in first-person is jaw-dropping and the game features some fantastic set piece moments fans will enjoy. Do not let children watch this game. It features very dark thematic content.
Infinite Warfare has a great campaign and a fun zombie mode. The multiplayer is solid, but it feels like it was lifted straight out of Black Ops III and given a new coat of paint. Fans of the franchise will find more of the same to love here but multiplayer fans looking for new flavor may look to the series' competitors this year.
Tethered is a solid strategy game with cute, fun aesthetics and engaging gameplay. If you're a fan of strategy or want a PSVR game with some more bite, you should definitely consider picking it up.
Ace Banana is a fun, colorful archery game with frantic action and a ton of power-ups and enemies to keep things fresh. With the art style of a Saturday morning cartoon, things maintain a sense of whimsy amidst the chaos. The action feels great when everything's working, but the loss of controller tracking can make a round infuriating in a hurry. If you want to expand your PSVR launch library with a game you're sure to get enjoyment out of, Ace Banana is worth a look for you though.
If you own a PlayStation VR, you need to own Pixel Gear. While it lacks some of the richer features of a full-blown game like Eve: Valkyrie, it makes excellent use of the Move controller to give you a fun, vibrant shooter experience you'll want to share with your friends.